He was not to be tripped up,
and discreetly declined to be drawn.
[Sidenote: Our first line of defence.]
It is one of the well-known peculiarities of the House of Commons that
its attendance is usually in inverse line of proportion to the
importance of the subject which it is discussing. On August 28th the
House was engaged in debating the question which above all others ought
to interest the people of this country--the state, namely, of our Navy.
Yet the House was almost entirely empty throughout the whole evening,
and the speeches were generally confined to the somewhat inarticulate
representatives of the services, and to the dullest and smallest men in
the whole assembly. It is obviously inconvenient--perhaps it is even
perilous--that interests so grave and so gigantic should fall for their
guardianship into hands so incompetent and so petty. It may be an
inevitable accompaniment of our Parliamentary system that the naval
debates should be so conducted; if so, one must put it down as one of
the evils which must be taken as part of the price we pay for the
excellences of a representative system.
[Sidenote: Sir Edward Reed as an alarmist.
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